Incredible: Read what four men did that made police compare them to Boko Haram

– Police arrested four men in Lagos for eating late out at night

– The police demanded for N15,000 bribe and locked them in cell for two days

– The case has been reported to the police complaint unit and the unit promised to look into the complaint

Four men in Lagos were arrested by the police around the Ojuelegba Bridge in the Surulere area foe eating late at night.

The Punch reports that the four men were arrested while they were eating noodles at a shop on Ogunlana Drive around 11pm on Tuesday, May 10.

The men were queried by the police for eating late out at night instead of in their homes and whisked them away

They were taken to the Area C command in Surulere where the police said they looked like Boko Haram terrorists due to their beards and they ordered to shave.

The police demanded for N15000 bribe and threatened that they would pass the night in the cell if they fail to meet the demand.

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Sango Svengali who was one of those arrested claimed they offered to pay N5000 but the police refused.

Svengali said: “I had a stressful day at work on Tuesday. There was a lot of traffic. Instead of going home through the Third Mainland Bridge, I decided to spend the night at a friend’s place in Ojuelegba. Some other friends came to my friend’s place. Later, around 11pm, we were hungry and we decided to go down the road to buy noodles.

“The Mai shai are basically night-food people. So we knew they would still be selling food. We drove to Ogunlana Drive and saw a woman selling noodles by the roadside. The three of us decided to buy noodles and eat. We sat on the trunk of the two cars we brought and ate the food. As we were about to go, three police vans stopped by our vehicles. There were about eight policemen in the vans.

“The policemen dragged me into one of their vans. I was confused and wanted to resist. But when I saw the young man selling recharge cards beside the woman being slapped several times, I knew it was useless resisting. The policemen did not ask us any question. They did not ask us to identify ourselves.”

“While in the van, the policemen sitting beside me collected my phone and started searching through it. He checked through my electronic mail, and when he did not find anything, he said, ‘Sometimes you go dey pray say you no dey road when devil dey pass.’ He added that we would ‘sort it out’ at the station.

“As we moved on, I noticed that my other friends – except one – were in the other vans. When we got to the station, we found that eight people had been picked up too. The policemen at the station said, ‘Why una no chop for house?’ One of my friends started negotiating for us at the counter. The policemen said they wanted N15,000 to let three of us go. He was begging them to take N5,000. They refused.

“The cell stank like a gutter. There were about 18 of us  there. We endured the stench till morning. When it was around 7am, we were brought before the area commander. We were lined up like criminals. He said our misdeed was that we ate at an unholy hour. He said we looked like fanatics and Boko Haram members.

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“He ordered them to lock us up again. After some time, some of our friends came, one of them is a lawyer. He spoke to the area commander. He said the only way to release us was to shave our beards. The police bought shaving sticks and made us shave at the counter. I was so embarrassed. All this while, we never wrote any statement. We were not accused of anything. When I finally left, it was some minutes before 10am.”

One of the suspects reported the case to the complaint response unit of the police and the head of the unit, Abayomi Shogunle, said a team of policemen had gone to the police station to ascertain the claim of the complainants.